Fly Crazy

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Nothing like a nice relaxing day at home. Sitting around, with a book, no distractions, no annoyances, just a nice, quiet-BZZZZZZZZZZZ!

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BZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Or not. There's a bug buzzing around your head, making it impossible to relax. Could be just a fly making trouble, but even worse, it could be a mosquito or a bee, just waiting to sting you when your back is turned.

The worst part is, it just won't go away, no matter how hard it gets swatted it just won't leave. So, of course, zanier and zanier schemes are required to get rid of it. After all, a baseball bat's big enough, it should be the perfect thing to whack a fly with, right?

Of course, what generally causes the most trouble isn't the bug itself, but the character's increasingly extreme attempts to get rid of it, unless the bug itself is a trickster. Generally, the character will only hurt themselves with their angry attempts to rid themselves of the pest, or, at the worst, end up destroying their perfect afternoon, while the fly gets away scott-free.

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Examples:

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Advertising

There was an ad for Tabasco sauce where a man was eating pizza on his porch, putting a good dollop of Tabasco sauce on each bite. A mosquito landed on him, bit him, flew off, and blew up, engendering a satisfied nod and smile from the man. One might surmise that he did this on purpose to get back at them.

An online advert for Schick — "ridding the world of irritation" — depicted a lab technician angrily shooing away a fly... until it lands on a mirror. The technician smugly pulls out a can of shaving foam and sprays the fly into oblivion.

The first two trailers for Angry Birds had the evil pigs distract the birds this way in order to steal their eggs.

Anime & Manga

In Azumanga Daioh, Tomo had a scene where she rampaged across the classroom trying to obliterate a cockroach that had flown in. Desks were overturned, students were catapulted into the sky, and much chaos ensued.

In the first episode of Squid Girl, the title character tries to swat a bug with her Combat Tentacles, but ends up punching a hole in the wall of the Lemon Beach House, thus kicking of the plot by indebting her to the Aizawa sisters.

In Nichijou, Yuko is lying in bed trying to go to sleep with a mosquito deflector buzzing close by. The deflector obviously wasn't doing its job; Yuko ended up flying out of bed and karate-chopped the mosquitoes right out of the air.

There was an Archie comic where a fly kept bothering Archie in school, with his attempts to swat it getting him in bigger and bigger trouble.

In the Tintin book Tintin: Land of Black Gold, Dr Müller swats away a wasp and in the process, accidentally knocks off everything on his desk — including a box of sneezing powder, which causes Tintin (in disguise) to blow his cover.

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Comic Strips

A few Garfield strips had Garfield either getting bothered by flies or trying to swat flies that enter the house.

In Caddyshack, Carl the groundskeeper is attempting to eradicate one gopher, and ends up blowing up the club's golf course.

Invoked in The Karate Kid (1984) by Mr. Miyagi who explains to Daniel-san the tradition of trying to catch a fly with chopsticks for good luck (if successful). Something—he notes—he himself hasn't even managed.

In The Pink Panther Strikes Again it was a bee, which Clouseau was chasing with a mace. He destroyed a priceless Steinway piano (Not anymore) when he swatted it. He then told the beekeeper that he might be missing a bee.

The main characters of Animorphs cause this when they morph flies to spy on the aliens that know every fly could be an enemy spy. Jake gets a fly as his cover morph in The Capture. Later in The Warning he almost dies after being swatted in fly morph.

One of La Fontaine's fables has a man become good friends with a bear. One day, the bear notices a fly buzzing around the sleeping man's head, and will not go away no matter how many times he swats at it. So he grabs a brick and hurls it at the fly, obliterating it (along with the guy's head. The fable's moral? "Better a wise enemy than an ignorant friend."

Live-Action TV

Babylon 5: When this happens to Londo Mollari, he doesnot screw around.

Breaking Bad has a rather famously ludicrous episode based entirely around catching a fly that got into their meth lab.

In the House episode "The Itch", House is bugged by a mosquito bite all day. That evening he chases the bug around his house with a rolled up magazine, accidentally breaking off a propane tanks valve and lighting his gas stove. The obligatory explosion is revealed to be all just a dream.

Series/Frasier: Martin accidentally brings back a cricket from his fishing trip, which is somewhere in Frasier's kitchen and constantly drives Frasier crazy with its chirping. Frasier and Martin end up bonding over their attempts to get rid of it.

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger has a variant, where one Monster of the Week is a Sizeshifter who manages to get into the Humongous Mecha. When he gets into the cockpit, the more Hot-Blooded Gokaiger pull out their guns and start shooting at him, damaging the equipment. Shortly thereafter he manages to get inside Gokai Yellow's costume, and Gokai Pink's use of bug spray to get him out causes him to punch a giant hole in the fuselage during his escape.

In one Poirot episode adaptation of Murder in Mesopotamia, during one night when Hercule Poirot is asleep, he gets woken up by a buzzing sound from a mosquito out to bite him. He tries many ways of catching it.

One of the early episodes of Sports Night featured Casey being plagued by this on the air, resulting in a noticeable flinch. Nobody else sees the fly (including his co-host sitting two feet away) and he is mocked relentlessly for appearing nuts. Later, after a Sorkin Relationship Moment with Dana, she sees it too.

On Top Gear's Bolivia special, Richard Hammond (who genuinely dislikes bugs and creepy-crawlies) has a series of minor freakouts when he discovers insect life in his tent and car.

Phil Collins' "Don't Lose My Number" has a scene in which Phil's face is superimposed on a computer-animated cartoon fly's body. As the music fades out, we see the real Phil, whose eyes are following the "fly." Eventually, it lands on the back of his neck; he swats it with his hand and asks, "So, how does it end?"

Pinky has a lot of trouble with both a hungry fly (who eats up all his food) and a flea (who itches him like crazy, then eats up all his food). In the first case, he sends the fly away by mail, only for it to return with a Stamp Gag.

There was also a fly that he tries to kill with karate, wrecking some of his own furniture... before it turns out the fly also knows martial arts, flipped him a time or three, and then twists his arm and throws him out of the house.

Beavis and Butt-Head have their "Die, Fly, Die!" episode. In their efforts to kill the fly, they hit each other with shovels, chainsaw the furniture, break a window, and use enough bug spray to knock themselves out. And then a whole swarm of flies comes in through the broken window.

The Bugs Bunny cartoon Baton Bunny (1959) features a fly infuriating Bugs as he conducts an orchestra. Somehow Bugs manages to get through the piece (with a lot of discordance), then discovers the orchestra's been playing to an empty hall, with only the fly offering applause, which the rabbit graciously accepts.

In the Darkwing Duck episode "Stressed To Kill," a fly interrupts DW's attempt to relax, and he goes after it in a manner that destroys the room and renders him even more stressed.

The Justice Friends episode "Bee Where?" is based around this. The three desperately try to get a bee out of their apartment. In the end they leave the bee alone in the apartment and move their things outside, saying they showed the bee who's boss.

The was once an adaptation of the story The Bear and the Fly. It involved a Papa Bear taking a flyswatter and inadvertently knocking out his wife, his daughter, and even the dog before finally knocking himself out when the fly landed on his nose. Overall, the fact that it wasn't presented in an over-the-top fashion made it somewhat unsettling.

In the intro to the old animated series C.O.P.S.note no relation to the reality TV show, while silently robbing a museum, villian Mc Boom Boom gets irritated by a fly and blows up several valuable pieces of art, summoning the police.

Happens in Heavy Metal Mater, where the real reason why Mater started a heavy metal band is because while in the recording studio, the Drummer Pitty was forced to play the drums faster in order to shoo away a VW Beetle, therefore prompting Mater and his two guitarists Rocky and Eddie to play faster.

In "Country Buzzin'', a Laurel and Hardy cartoon, the boys go to the country to relax, but a mosquito torments them.

One gag on Family Guy had the family getting annoyed at a fly repeatedly failing to fly out of an open window.

In a cutaway gag in "Road to Rhode Island", Peter repeatedly shoots at and misses a fly as Lois tries to read.

The Rocko's Modern Life episode "Day of the Flecko" had Rocko trying to catch up on his sleep after staying late at work, only to be bugged by (among other things) an obnoxious fly named Flecko.

A possibly apocryphal blunder from an accident claims report, as told by Richard Lederer in Anguished English, says "In an attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole."

Google "20 bug bombs house" and you'll find countless stories similar to this one; homeowner has bug infestation. Homeowner uses bug bombs — more than they need. This usually turns out okay as long as they read the rest of the instructions beforehand; specifically, to eliminate all heat sources such as electricity and pilot lights. Most do. The ones that don't...

Barack Obama once swatted a fly during a TV interview, earning him the ire of PETA.

Flies in real life are attracted to scents that will frequently come from your face or body (shampoo, perfume, etc.), which will prompt them to fly around your face more often.

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